“Hispania Racing will be in action in Monza from the 14th to 16th of February, and will travel to Barcelona for the final European testing-session straight after the filming-exercise is completed, in order to be ready for testing in Barcelona on the 18th of February.”

The team revealed its 2011 F1 car, the F111, earlier today, but they will use the F110 at Monza. The F111 will run for the first time in the Bahrain test in March.

Maybe it is just to far for them to travel. They have the worst record last year of payments, always late. I don’t blame them so much as I do Bernie. I was talking to a close friend who knows the man who brought the F1 to Singapore and they only made money their first year. If anything will kill F1, it is Bernie’s greed and his greedy little daughters.

Bernie doesn’t make anyone sign the deals. It’s up to them whether they accept what’s on offer. Also, Bernie didn’t choose the new teams or really cause the confusion over whether there would be a budget cap so whatever state HRT are in it isn’t his fault. I do recall though Eddie Jordan saying how he owed Bernie lots as he used to help his team survive so maybe he’s actually a blessing for a team like HRT :P

Seriously, can we stop this already? For all we know, the Hondas that had gone before, were all equally fast in the first race and it was in fact the execution of the race weekends that did them in. And yes, Brawn executed that part really, really well given his distinct lack of anything resembling a traditional F1 budget. But he was given the bloody car by Honda. Stop making out like he drew a doddle on a paper napkin in a restaurant one night and it came out a championship winning car.

I think the Brawn success was a mixture of things. For one, Ferrari and McLaren were involved in quite a battle during 2008, and so were devoting their resources to the 2008 car. Honda shelved development of their 2008 car mid way though the season to focus on the 2009, and so had six months extra time.

Brawn also had the double diffuser before most of the big teams copied it. Where Renault, McLaren and Ferrari were spending 20 million on their KERS, Brawn focused on an alternative interpretation of the technical regulations. But they could only do this because of the massive changes to the regulations which took place between the 08/09 seasons. Such a change doesn’t exist this season, so there is less scope to invest in redically different concepts.

I think it was only the huge rules changes, coupled with the extra development time which gave the Brawn such an advantage in its aero package. WIthout a massive overhaul of the regs, there is little chance anyone will be making massive gains this season.

Mercedes has a six month head start in 2011 at least, as they stopped developing their car mid way though last year. We’ll have to see how much momentum they can gain.

Seems pretty clear to me that the team is in survival mode again. Testing costs money (but gains performance), while publicity shoots like this actually make money (for no gain in performance). Any F1 team which is more concerned with making money, than making a faster car, will quickly fall right off the grid.

It does seem odd though, I mean they have released pictures of the car, but in computer imagery. Why do that and then use the old car (again) for a filming day at monza? Lotus might have done a filming day, but it was in this years car.

Il be amazed if they are at Barca test in anything other then the F110. Something seems bit dodgy here.

Might it be the teams have some issues with the tyres and want someone to test a car with more appropriate DF levels to run them?

Pedro DLR stated (in the flying whatever with P. Windsor, really worth a look), that it really is a problem to simulate the DF levels of current cars on the 2009 Toyota.

If you would let anyone test on a current day car to decide on the actual compounds to use for different tracks who would you choose?Exactly, HRT a team so far behind, they will hardly be faster than anyone soon, even with that extra experience.

I gotta agree SJM, anyone with the computer skills could knock up a convincing render like HRT have. They’ve so far built all of zero cars (since they outsourced last year’s) and I’m not at all sure they’ve ever shown evidence of a capacity to do so, what with not even being able to make components for last year’s car!
I’d love for them to turn out to be putting the finishing touches on a competitive motor but HRT has had the feeling of being on borrowed time for about a year now…

Of course is the F110 that will be at Barca. How much times to they have to tell it you people? The new car will run at the last test in Bahrain. Is that so hard to understand?
They have said so weeks ago.

As for skipping the test. Well, considering they won’t have the new car ready until March and they will be running with last years car, is not like they lose much by skipping a test and getting some money from Pirelli.
Two test with the old car are more than enough.

Were they going to Jerez anyway – No. We knew that weeks ago and they were going straight to Bahrain.

This way they probably get a bit of cash, gives the drivers a chance to give the car a shake-down and it will be an Hispania that are in Pirelli promotional videos which will generate some much-needed publicity.